Duality
by Cassandra Mulder
Summary: Secrets long buried and secret identities come to the surface as two lives merge again in unexpected ways. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Duality (1/14)  
**Author: **Cassandra Mulder  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Classification: **Chlark; Chlois (Chloe-as-Lois); AU; futurefic  
**Spoilers: **Everything's fair game up through the season three finale, "Crusade". I've messed everything around from there.  
**Disclaimer: **Al and Miles own everything but intelligence, Tollin/Robbins, DC Comics, and the WB also put up with those clowns. I'm just playing, and no fringement is intended.  
**Word count: **18,890  
**Written: **April 2004 - August 31, 2005  
**Distribution: **My site, Bound, AMO, anyone else, please ask.  
**Summary: **Secrets long buried and secret identities come to the surface as two lives merge again in unexpected ways.  
**A/N: **This thing is an epic, for me. I don't do long as an unwritten rule, but this is looong. However, I'm happy to have finally given birth to this brain child, and I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I did writing it. Because even when it was a struggle, it was an adventure.  
**Thank you: **HUGE thanks and much love go out to Jen, my wonderful, thorough, patient beta. She kept this story coherent (or at least as coherent as anything I write), grammatically correct, and punctuation sound. With something this big you definitely need someone to catch all the things you don't, and I never could've pieced it together correctly without her.

* * *

Clark Kent walked the halls of the Daily Planet trying to quell his nerves. _It's just first day jitters_, he reminded himself. _I've been through worse_. He had had enough intern experience in college that he shouldn't be nervous at all. That thought didn't help ease his anxiety. He was working for Perry White now, and he was afraid his new boss was going to see him as the crazy farm boy he had thought him to be during their first encounter in Smallville. 

A whole lot had changed in the years since, and that farm boy was no exception.

He adjusted the glasses he didn't really need, and finally found his cubicle among the many that framed the ever-buzzing newsroom. How anyone got any work done with all the noise, he would never know. It was definitely nothing like working at a small town paper, and neither compared to the solitude of the farm where he had grown up.

Not that he had been to the farm much lately. Since Jonathan Kent succumbed to heart failure at an all too early age, Clark's heart hadn't been in visiting his childhood home. The only reason he endured the visits were for his mother. She was devastated by the loss of her husband, but had insisted on keeping the farm going. With a couple of hired hands, plus her small pie business, she was doing fine.

Martha told Clark repeatedly that Jonathan's death was not his fault, but he still couldn't help feeling responsible. Too many of his thoughts started with, "If it wasn't for me..."

Clark brought himself back to the present when he heard a cough, and blinked at the woman standing before him, looking expectant. He realized his mouth was hanging open, and tried to apologize, only to find his voice wasn't working.

I _She looked just like her..._

The petite brunette waved her hand in front of his face.

"Hello? Earth to..." She leaned sideways slightly to read the nameplate on his desk. "Clark Kent."

She didn't talk like her. Her voice was just slightly deeper and huskier.

"I'm... I'm sorry," Clark stammered. "You are?" he asked, a puzzled look crossing his features.

"Lois Lane," she said simply, holding out her hand for him to shake.

As he did, a realization dawned on him. "You're..." he stopped, not sure whether to broach the subject or not.

"I'm?"

Clark cleared his throat. "You're, uh, related to Chloe Sullivan, aren't you?"

A troubled look danced across her face. "Yeah. Yeah, I was her cousin. Am. Whatever." She seemed flustered now. "Come to think of it, you must be I the /I Clark Kent from Smallville that she used to go on about all the time."

He blushed a bit, and readjusted his glasses. "I'm the only one as far as I know."

"That's good, because from the stories she used to tell, she couldn't have kept up with two of you."

Clark was at a loss for words, so he cleared his throat again. "You look a lot like her," he blurted out.

To his surprise, she only shrugged. "Some cousins do."

He nodded. "Right." Pause. "Well, Miss Lane, I better get to work. I'd hate to screw up my first day."

"You can call me Lois," she said, then turned and walked away.

_This is not good_, she thought to herself. _He can't be here._

She watched him from across the bullpen. He seemed to be doing research. He was... still beautiful. She sighed. This wasn't going to work. He would discover her secret sooner or later, and that might put her in danger again. Not to mention what it would do to him.

She got up and made her way to the ladies' room. Leaning against the sink, she looked into the mirror, wondering how he wouldn't eventually just _know_.

Sure, her short, blonde hair had been replaced with longer, darker tresses, and her blue-gray eyes were now brown thanks to colored contacts. She'd changed everything about herself, from her hair and eyes to the way she walked, talked, and dressed. It hadn't been an easy process. If there was one thing Chloe Sullivan had prided herself on, it was being herself. Now she had to be somebody else.

She rarely thought of herself as Chloe anymore, she had become so immersed in her role. That had been the hardest part of her transformation. It had taken her a long time to automatically respond to a different name, but it had gotten easier over time. Slowly she had begun to dwell less on the life she could no longer have, and think more about the one she had to create for herself.

She sighed and ran a hand through her bangs. Clark being here only complicated things more than they already were. She would have to play her role more thoroughly than ever. One tiny slip and he would know.

He couldn't know.

Clark had lost his best friend seven years ago, or so he thought. She couldn't admit to him that she had made him, and everyone else that had loved her, suffer just to save herself.

Her own father didn't know she was alive and well. She had hurt the two people she loved more than anything in the world, and she had to live with that guilt every single day. She didn't know what it would do to Clark to know that his best friend wasn't really dead, she had just run away.

She turned away from the mirror and took a deep breath. She could only hope now wasn't the time to start paying for the things she had done.

Clark was waiting at her desk when she returned, and she groaned inwardly.

"Can I help you, Kent?" she asked pointedly.

He only raised his eyebrows at first, until he found his voice. "Uh..."

_God, he's_ still _a dork_, she thought.

"Well? I haven't got all day," she said, shooing him from his perch on the edge of her desk so she could reach her chair.

The girl he thought was Lois, for now, brushed by him and sat down, crossing her legs and folding her hands on top of her short skirt. She looked up at him expectantly, wondering what was taking him so long.

"I - I just had a couple of questions," he stammered.

She had only ever heard him struggle this much around Lana Lang, years ago. _Please don't let me become his next brunette obsession_, she silently begged anyone who might be listening. There _was_ only so much she could take.

"Okay..."

"Well," he started, pushing at his glasses, "you're one of the big time writers around here... so I was wondering when we get our assignments."

"There's a staff meeting this afternoon at two. Mr. White usually takes care of that then, unless we're already working on something. And I would assume you're not yet."

Clark shook his head.

There was a brief moment of silence, so to cover her frustration, she asked, "You said you had a _couple_ of questions?"

"Oh. Yeah. The second one was, will you go to lunch with me?"

Her face fell. _Oh, great_, she thought.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

(2/14)

Clark watched the woman in front of him stab at her salad like she was trying to kill a wild animal.

"Is there something wrong, Lois?" Somehow he was concerned and amused at the same time.

Lois stopped abruptly, and looked up at him. "No," she shrugged. "I've just had sort of a rough morning."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"'Fraid not," she replied as her shoulders sagged.

He studied her as she picked at her food more calmly now. He never would have thought he would meet Chloe's cousin, much less be working with her, in a city the size of Metropolis. That old cliché about it being a small world was starting to ring true.

He wasn't sure whether he was disturbed or comforted by the resemblance. On one hand it was troubling to be looking at someone who was almost the mirror image of the best friend he had lost, and on the other it was good to see that face again, regardless of the weird circumstances.

Not that weirdness was new in his life.

Their conversation had gone from stalled to a dead stop and he was just about ready to throw in the towel and pay the bill. It was quite clear that Lois didn't like him, for whatever reason. He thought he would try, for the connection to Chloe, if nothing else, but it wasn't working.

Maybe she didn't want the connection; didn't want to remember anymore than he did.

"Um, are you ready to go?" he asked when he couldn't stand anymore tension.

"Sure," she said, letting her fork clink down on the plate, and reaching for her purse. "Just let me know what my half is."

"Don't worry about it, I'm paying," he told her.

She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand to stop her.

"Where I come from, when a man asks a lady to share a meal with him, he pays."

She looked too stressed to argue. He was sure she was perfectly capable of argument, but she simply said, "Good old small-town chivalry", and let him pay the bill.

He held the door open for her as they left and she didn't bother to act surprised.

They walked along in silence toward the Planet building.

"Are you single, Kent?" She suddenly spoke.

He was taken aback briefly, before nodding. "Yeah. Why?"

Lois shrugged. "With that routine, I figured some poor sap would've snapped you up already," she answered with the first smile he had seen from her.

Her smile was definitely different. It was more reserved, where Chloe's had always been so wide, so open.

_I have to stop comparing them..._

"Are you gay?"

"No!" he responded quickly.

A small laugh escaped her. "Just checking."

"How about you?" he asked back.

"Gay? No. Single? Happily."

"So there's such a thing as happily single?"

"As if there's such a thing as happily married?" she asked sarcastically.

"You might have a point there, but stranger things have happened."

* * *

_Yeah, Mr. and Mrs. Kent_, she thought darkly. What hurt her the most was that she had seen Jonathan's obituary, and couldn't say anything to Clark about it. 

"Guess you've seen it happen then," she said a little too brightly.

"Yeah," was his only reply.

She looked at her watch. "Oh man, we better walk a little faster, our break's almost over."

He merely nodded as they picked up the pace, and she berated herself for broaching a subject she should have known would be touchy.

But that was just it. She wasn't supposed to know. Clark wouldn't blame her because he was a stranger, and she didn't know anything about him.

Or so he thought. It was getting too confusing to keep straight in her head.

They parted ways once they got to the office since they only had an hour to prepare for the staff meeting.

Lois couldn't concentrate to save her life. She still didn't know why she agreed to go to lunch with him. She couldn't afford to get too close. Not again, and for a million different reasons than before. Being with him made her want to tell him; made her want to break out her old Chloe smile and say, "Hey, Clark, it's me! Not the dead cousin whose identity I assumed, me."

She couldn't do that. Not now, and probably not ever. As long as Lex Luthor was alive and carrying his father's vendetta, she had to hide. Even then, if his research was thorough enough, she was afraid he might still find her.

That was a chance she was willing to take, considering she felt she covered her tracks well enough. Taking her life into her own hands was one thing, but she wouldn't endanger Clark. She saw the lengths he would go to for her, and she wasn't about to intrude on the life he was obviously trying to rebuild. He had his own problems.

So she would go on playing a stranger and hope he would stay out of her way and keep things strictly business.

Then again, she knew Clark Kent - or at least she used to - and staying out of people's way was not his strong suit.

"I am so screwed," she muttered, dropping her head in her hands.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

(3/14)

_The staff meeting could've gone better_, Clark thought, letting himself into his new apartment.

He ended up with an assignment on Lex Corp, and Lois caught him staring at her at least half a dozen times. He knew he hadn't made a very good impression on her, but he turned into a basket-case when she was around. Her resemblance to his dead best friend was just too distracting.

It hadn't helped when Mr. White talked about pairing them up on investigative assignments. If there was one thing he couldn't afford, it was to get too close to her. Or anyone, for that matter.

He had a plan; a secret. No one could come between him and that, it was too important.

Clark tossed his single bag of groceries on the counter and hit the message button on his answering machine. There was nothing, as usual.

The evening spread out before him, as empty as they had all been since he left home. Short of a major crisis, it looked like it would be him and the TV for the night.

He moved through the apartment, turning lights on as he went. When he got to the bedroom, he threw his jacket on a chair and loosened his tie. Sometimes he regretted choosing a profession where he had to wear a suit every day. It was a far cry from the flannel and jeans he'd grown up in.

The one thing that Chloe had endlessly teased him about.

He told himself that he had to stop thinking about her, but the thing was, he had never stopped. He blamed himself for Chloe's death every day for the last seven years.

It was yet to be seen if he could work with her practically identical cousin every day without having a nervous breakdown.

Worse yet, he didn't know what she would do to him if she found out that he hadn't been there when Chloe needed him the most.

* * *

Lois felt like she had been running laps around the newsroom all afternoon. It had been almost a month since Clark had unexpectedly walked back into her life, and she had almost been too busy to notice ever since.

Almost.

She noticed that he wore his hair quite a bit shorter now, and always combed and parted on the side. She still had no idea what was up with the glasses. Clark always had ridiculously perfect vision.

Then again, there wasn't a whole lot that made sense in her world anymore. She had spent every minute of the last few weeks trying to concentrate on their Lex Corp story with Clark always trailing her like a shadow. She had wanted to say something to him about that, but didn't see any point in making things more awkward than they already were.

Besides the constant distraction of her past, there had been a hot story buzzing around the Planet offices for the last two weeks.

A flying man had been seen around Metropolis, which, while odd, wasn't exactly the weirdest thing she had ever heard. Supposedly, he was some sort of superhero - busting criminals, saving small children, plucking kittens out of trees...

They were calling him Superman, but she wasn't sure that was official.

The main reason the city was abuzz was because no one had ever gotten a good look at him. Lois pitied Jimmy Olsen, one of the Planet's young photographers, because Mr. White had the poor boy out almost all day every day, trying to get a good photo.

It hadn't happened yet, and Lois tried to reassure Jimmy he wasn't going to get fired because a hot subject was being elusive on purpose.

She hoped she was right. Perry White could be incredibly unpredictable and ruthless.

This new phenomenon in Metropolis had also been pushing her to beat her deadline on the Lex Corp story. She wasn't having much success with anything except her sources. Neither she nor Clark could get in to see Lex.

When she asked Clark why he couldn't get in to see him, he muttered something about having a past and tried to change the subject.

But of course, she knew their past. She knew the spectacular blowout that had led to the end of their precarious friendship.

She knew everything, and every day she had to go on like she wasn't the girl that had died for him and his secrets.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

(4/14)

"That is an incredibly bad idea," Clark said as he paced up and down in front of Lois' desk. Her office was small, so he only had about six feet to do this, and she wondered if he was ever going to get as annoyed with it as she was.

"C'mon, Kent, it would be just like -" She stopped, and her breath caught as he halted his pacing to turn and look at her. "Just like all the other times I've done stupid stuff like this," she said quickly.

"Or like all the times Chloe and I did this?"

"Or that, too," she agreed, hoping he hadn't caught her. "She had some tales."

"And one finally got her killed," he said darkly.

"I -" Lois pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "I know that," she said defensively.

Clark turned and walked out her door.

Lois almost slammed her chair against the wall, she got up so quickly. She followed him through the newsroom to his cubicle, where he stopped so suddenly she almost ran into him.

"Geez, Clark!"

He turned around and gave her an odd look. But then his expression turned to stone and he said, "What do you want?"

"We have to do this. You know we do. To finish the assignment, we _have_ to, and I want it to be over. Mr. White wants an interview with Lex Luthor. Either we get one or we get fired."

"He wouldn't really..."

"Yes, he would. I've seen it happen countless times."

"He's never gonna see us."

"Yes, he is."

"He's never gonna talk to us."

"Then we'll make him."

The hard glint in her eyes told him it was true. Lois Lane was not a woman to be messed around with. He was finally beginning to see that.

* * *

"Do I need to tell you again that this is a bad idea?" Clark whispered to Lois as they sat outside Lex Luthor's office. 

She glared at him, then continued staring at her hands in her lap. So showing up without an appointment hadn't been the smartest thing to do. Last resorts usually weren't. The point was, they had been announced, and security hadn't been up to retrieve them, so she was going to take what she could get.

They had already been waiting half an hour, which she thought was stretching it, even if they _had_ barged in. But she'd known Lex wasn't going to make this easy for either of them.

She sighed and shifted in her chair just as Lex's secretary popped her head out the door.

"Mr. Kent? Ms. Lane? Mr. Luthor will see you now."

They both stood, and Lois straightened her suit.

_Get in, get answers, get out_, she thought. _And hopefully no one gets hurt._

The moment she laid eyes on Lex, for the first time in person in seven years, she wasn't so sure about that last part.

He was still bald and well dressed, but the weight of his years spent battling against what he thought was the true nature of the Luthors had taken their toll. Not so much in the way he looked - at the age of thirty he still had boyish features - but in his demeanor.

He stood and walked toward them, greeting them like perfect strangers. She was, as far as he knew, but they _all_ knew Clark wasn't.

As he reached out his right hand to shake hers, she noticed it was encased in a black leather glove.

"If you're here about the stock scandal, I've answered all the questions I'm going to answer," he said, gesturing to two chairs as he headed back behind his desk.

Clark made no move to speak, so Lois took the lead.

_Just like old times_, she mused to herself.

She took the seat in front of Lex's desk, and primly crossed her ankles.

"I'm afraid we're here about a scandal of another kind," she said, looking him straight in the eye.

"And what would that be, Ms. Lane?"

"Well, there have been... rumblings, shall we say, that Lex Corp is secretly carrying on illegal genetic and biological experiments. Much like the ones performed at Luthor Corp in Smallville in the late nineteen-nineties through the early part of the last decade.

"Considering the trouble those caused, I'm curious to know why they're still going on when the repercussions are so clear?"

"And how would you know about the experiments in Smallville?"

"Research," she replied evenly.

"And I grew up there," Clark chimed in, finally.

_Good_, Lois thought. _I thought you were dead over there for a minute._

Lex's attention still seemed focused only on her.

"Well, then. If you've done your research thoroughly enough, Ms. Lane, you will know that once the danger of the meteor rocks - which all of my _father's_ experiments were based on - was made public knowledge, they were eradicated."

"Oh, I know that," Lois countered. "But if all the meteor rocks were gathered by a Luthor-backed company, you'd be good to go for, oh, ever."

Lex smirked at her, clearly amused by her tenacity. "I can assure you we had nothing to do with the digs for the rocks, nor is there anymore experimentation involving them. I put a stop to that long ago."

"So that's it? That's your official statement?"

"That's the truth, Ms. Lane."

She had known she would never get the truth out of him, but she'd had to try.

Lois stood, followed by Clark, and smiled at Lex. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Luthor."

"I'm sorry to have wasted yours, Ms. Lane. Mr. Kent."

It was the first time he had openly acknowledged Clark, but he was still looking at her with that enigmatic smile. It reminded her of the way he used to look at Lana. _Apparently, I should've been a brunette all along._

"We can show ourselves out," she said, and by the time she reached the door, Clark was already holding it open for her.

She only glanced at him as they made their way into the elevator, and down to the main lobby.

As they stepped out, she turned to look at him.

"That was a great performance, Kent. What the hell were you doing? Or _not_ doing, I should say."

Clark looked positively defeated, but she couldn't feel all that sorry for him. After all, she had just faced the man whose father had tried to kill her. And it wasn't as if Lex had done anything to stop him.

Lois looked at him expectantly. "Well? Did you freeze, or was I just doing that good of a job?"

"It's complicated."

"Oh?"

"I haven't spoken to Lex Luthor since right after Chloe died."

"I guess that's why he paid such a great deal of attention to you," she said. Shaking her head, she started for the door.

Clark followed and gently grabbed her arm. "I'm sorry, Lois. I should've been more help. But it - It didn't end well."

She eyed her arm, and he removed his hand. "It doesn't matter, Smallville. Neither one of us was going to get a straight answer out of him. I doubt anyone ever has."

Lois turned and continued making her way out of the Lex Corp building. The further she got from any Luthor, the better. Right now she didn't even care if Clark followed, she just wanted out.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

(5/14)

Nothing had been going well before, but in the week since their meeting with Lex things had been even worse between Clark and Lois, and he had no idea why she had taken that encounter so hard. There were the obvious reasons, but he still felt like there was something bothering her that he had no clue about.

That was usually his problem, but at least he'd come to realize it since he was a teenager. Now that he was picking up on things, he couldn't get her to tell him what was wrong. She went about her business, and that was that. The old Kent charm didn't seem to go far at all where Lois Lane was concerned. He had never met anyone that stubborn in his life. Not even the best friend he couldn't forget.

He finally cornered her in her office, which he had entered without knocking.

"Lois, we need to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about."

Clark gave her a frustrated look.

"Do you need help with something?"

He rolled his eyes. "No."

"Then there's nothing to talk about, is there?"

"You haven't been the same since -" He stopped at the glare she shot him. "Since the other day."

"Look, Kent, we haven't really known each other long enough for you to determine what the 'same' is for me. So don't you worry your pretty little head about it, and everything will be just fine."

"As much as I love being patronized," he said with an unfriendly smirk "maybe I should _be_ worried about it."

Lois finally stepped out from behind her desk. "Clark, let's get one thing straight, okay? We are not friends. We are here to work together because the Chief made it so. It wasn't my choice and it wasn't yours. So let's keep it professional, all right? I don't need you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. That may be your job, but not when it comes to me. Got it?"

She was rather intimidating for such a little thing... But he backed down, knowing he'd gone too far. "Got it."

"Thank you," she said, retreating back to her chair. "Now, if there isn't anything else..."

"Nope," he said with a shake of his head.

As he left her office, his mind wasn't any more at ease. In fact, he was more muddled than ever if she had something to hide, and it appeared she did. She'd never been totally comfortable with him, and he only found that odd because that was usually _his_ role with new people. He needed to find out if it was the ghost standing between them, or something more, that was making their partnership a total misfire.

* * *

Lois leaned her head back on the edge of the bathtub and took a deep breath. It had been a long day and Clark's questioning at every turn was taking its toll. She cursed him every day for not finding a position somewhere else. Another newspaper, another city, she wouldn't have cared. She did care that he was breathing down her neck all day every day. 

Which wouldn't be an unpleasant prospect if only...

She smacked herself in the forehead with a wet palm. Things couldn't be that way, and she knew it. Unfortunately, the one thing that hadn't changed were the feelings he stirred inside of her, and it was like she had reverted to her teenage brain all over again. She couldn't figure out exactly why she had ever loved him to begin with, but it was something that had never let go. If he would just stay out of her life, she wouldn't have so many issues. She had lived like a nun for the last seven years, and she would be perfectly content to go on in the same fashion if he would just _go away_.

Nothing could ever be simple for her, that much she knew.

Her wallowing was interrupted by a dull thud that seemed to originate from her balcony. She thought about ignoring it considering her apartment was on the fourteenth floor, but it was weird enough that she felt the need to check it out.

Quickly emerging from her bath, she grabbed a towel and dried off as best she could, then grabbed her blue terrycloth robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door. She carefully entered her bedroom, and drew her handgun from the drawer of the nightstand. She had never had to use it, but technically someone could still want her dead, so she never saw the harm in getting the permit and having it on hand.

As she entered the living room, she told herself she was being silly. The only thing that could possibly be on her balcony was a bird, or someone with serious skyscraper-scaling repelling equipment. If someone was that desperate to get to her, she would give them a surprise welcome.

The only lighting in the room was a lamp in the corner, but she could see the room was clear. She made sure the sliding door that opened to the balcony was latched, then pulled the curtain back completely. Something whooshed past so fast at that very moment that she couldn't tell what it was, but she definitely determined it was bigger than a bird. She stepped back behind the curtain and tried to catch her breath.

When had Metropolis become infested with pterodactyls?

That had definitely been weird. She hadn't missed Smallville _that_ much.

Lois peeked out again and didn't see anything at first. Then a silhouette caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, and she gasped, clutching her pistol tighter.

She squinted through the darkness and saw what looked like a man perched on the concrete wall. If he was a jumper she needed to call the police, but how the _hell_ had he gotten all the way up there? She could tell he was facing the window, so she had already been seen. She might as well check out what was going on.

Sliding the safety off the gun, she opened the door and slowly stepped out. The man made no move. The city lights surrounding them cast odd shadows, and didn't seem to illuminate any place she needed to see. She stopped and held the gun out in front of her. Maybe she should have called the police first...

"Who are you and what are you doing?" she said, sounding far steadier than she felt.

Silence.

"How did you get up here?" she asked firmly, but he still refused to answer. Groaning inwardly, she realized she would need to get closer if she were ever going to identify him for the police. She wasn't afraid to shoot him if he tried anything, but she didn't want to have to shoot anyone.

"I don't know who you are," she said, taking two steps, "but I am hardly amused." No one would be, trapped out on her balcony with a possible psycho, wearing nothing but a robe.

Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she cursed herself for never replacing the bulb in the outside light. That could have been helpful.

She could make out that he was wearing a cape, which she thought was weird until it registered fully.

_Holy crap..._

She put the gun down at her side, and the man stepped down off the edge almost effortlessly. Almost like he was... floating.

Her eyes widened, but she didn't dare say what she was thinking, because she saw his face and she knew.

Superman was on her balcony.

Superman was Clark Kent.

"I... I -" She really had to stop gaping and get a hold of herself. "I don't know why you're here, but I have a front door."

"I don't usually use them," he said with a raised eyebrow, in a voice more confident than she had ever heard from him.

He looked like Clark, but he didn't sound like Clark. At least not the one she had grown up with, and definitely not the hapless upstart reporter she had been working with the past couple of months. This was insane. Or she was dreaming. At that moment she couldn't decide between a sleeping delusion or a completely stressed out hallucination.

She was speechless. He was acting as if he didn't know her, so she pretended not to recognize him.

"You can put away the gun. I'm not going to hurt you."

Lois glanced down at the gun now dangling in her hand, and she put the safety back on. It wouldn't have done her any good if she had needed it. From what she had heard, he was indestructible.

The last twelve years were starting to make sense. It wasn't any less surreal, but it definitely made more sense.

"You're, um, Superman. I kinda got that not hurting people thing." She felt a little queasy, and she was starting to shiver in the cool night air. "You never told me why you were here."

"I just thought I'd pay a visit to Metropolis' most intrepid reporter. I'm not very easy to get in contact with, and I just wanted to put the city's fears to rest. It would seem there are some who don't trust me or my motives."

She didn't know what was going on, but she certainly intended to play along until she could get to the bottom of it. That is, if she _hadn't_ fallen asleep in the bathtub after all and was having the strangest dream in history. The fact that she was freezing cold and all but naked in the early October chill made her doubt such a thing. "Oh, sure. A flying superhero, what's so odd about that?" _Hard to reach. That's funny, seeing as you're ten feet outside my door every day_, she thought. "And how do you know who I am?" she asked suspiciously for the sake of the charade.

"I know everybody, Lois. But I'm sorry if I scared you." He looked around, and raised his hands. "There really wasn't any other way."

"Mmm," she said absently, scanning him up and down. Clark was standing in front of her wearing what amounted to a leotard, a speedo, a cape, and _tights_ of all things, and she had nothing. There was absolutely nothing she could say that would make the situation any more or less absurd.

She finally found her tongue, which she had figuratively reeled in from the floor. "One day, when I actually have, you know, _clothes on_, I want an exclusive."

"Done," he said far too easily.

"And you'll keep dodging the press and the photographers till then?"

"That won't be a problem."

"How's tomorrow night?" Normally she wouldn't have put it off for twenty-four hours, but there would be no interview if she didn't have time to gather herself. A late night intrusion wasn't the best scenario and this had to be good.

"Barring any emergencies, I'll be here," he said, and with a wave of his hand he rose in the air and flew away.

"Un-freakin'-believable," she muttered as she watched him get smaller and smaller.

There was no way that what just happened had _happened_. She re-entered her living room, somehow remembering to re-latch the door, and headed back to her bedroom to replace the handgun in her nightstand.

All of the things she had never been able to explain about her best friend came down to the fact that he had been a meteor freak all along, and he had never told her. He'd never trusted her with the one piece of information that could have brought them so much closer. She had never been one to harp on secrets and lies like a certain brunette bane of her existence, but he should have known he could trust her with that. If he'd wanted it to remain a secret, it would have.

Then again, considering she had made certain mistakes, she wouldn't have been able to blame him for thinking twice about revealing his secrets. That was just one more thing she had added to her ever-growing list of regrets.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

(6/14)

_It always amazed him that there used to be a house where he stood. Now there was nothing but ashes, and a small crater where the structure that was supposed to have been a_ safe _house used to be._

_Chloe was supposed be safe there, but now there was nothing left of her either._

_Gabe was in the hospital, only slightly more stable than when he had first been brought in, badly burned with half a dozen broken bones. And they considered him lucky._

_It had taken almost a week, but the doctors had finally deemed him conscious, coherent, and stable enough to be told that his only daughter hadn't been so "lucky". The Kents had insisted on the news not coming from a stranger, so they volunteered for the unthinkable duty of telling him that Chloe was gone._

_Clark hadn't gone in with them, because despite all his superhuman powers, he was still struggling, and he couldn't bear the look on his face, or the blame that he was afraid he might see there. Even though he sat in the waiting room, the distance didn't muffle the strangled cry that came from all the way down the hall, as clear to him as if he had been in the room anyway._

_In so many ways he felt like he had let them all down. Like he should have known something was going to happen, because no one ever crossed the Luthors and escaped unscathed. He had known that, and he'd still done nothing to ensure her safety. If he had been there... even if he had just checked and double checked the place without anyone's knowledge, he could have found the bomb, and none of this would be happening._

_But he had been off chasing his sadistic father's information, and all else had gone unnoticed. He had been trapped for what felt like years in the phantom zone, but was only a matter of hours in reality. By the time he had come back, and Jor-El's reprogramming had been reversed, it had been too late. His parents had had to tell him the news, too._

_The harsh realities that had hit him in the last week were worse than anything he could have ever imagined. Every time he turned around, he was dialing her cell number, or thinking he was going to drop by the Torch to bring her coffee, or get the latest scoop, or just chat. The fact that she was dead had hit him so many times already that he had almost become completely numb. It was a welcome change from the anger, guilt, and sadness he had felt every waking moment since his return._

_Unfortunately, there had been far more waking moments in his life, since he had barely slept at all in four days. He had tried, but the things he saw when he did fall asleep weren't worth the supposed rest. There was nothing restful about the images of what must have happened to Chloe, or the thoughts she must have been having when she realized he wasn't going to save her this time._

_He had failed her in the worst way possible, and he wasn't sure he could live with it. His parents were worried about him, but no one in his life could make it better._

_As he stood on the spot where she had experienced the horror of her last moments, he heard a voice._

_"I thought you would always be there to protect me," she said, and he swore she was standing right there in front of him._

_He couldn't explain what was happening; whether it was real or just sleep deprivation, but the tears began to roll down his face again because he knew there was nothing he could say. "I'm so sorry, Chloe. I should've been here."_

_She disappeared as suddenly as she had come._

_It was then that he had come to the most painful realization of all. He had loved her all along, but he had been too afraid to tell her. To admit what he'd kept burying would have changed everything, and now that everything had changed for the worst, he hated himself for being such a coward._

_He had hurt her repeatedly, and she had died before he took the chance to step up and explain._

_Now that chance was gone forever, and he had no idea what his life was going to be like without her._

Clark woke up in a cold sweat. Everything had come rushing back to him, and the overwhelming sense of regret he had carried for the last seven years threatened to swallow him whole. He often wondered how things would have been if Chloe had lived. He was almost certain he wouldn't have taken the path he was on now, but he couldn't help thinking that if she was still with him she would have inspired him to be greater than he had ever dreamed.

That was where he had wanted her, all those years he had spent finding himself, when he went to college, and certainly now when every time he looked into her cousin's face he saw what he had lost.

It wasn't like he had never let anyone else in his life down, but there were just some failures he didn't know if he could live with any longer.

* * *

"Lane," Lois answered her phone distractedly. She was desperately searching for the copy she left on her desk the night before. It was Thursday but it was starting to feel a lot like a Monday. She would be glad when the work week was finally over. 

"He WHAT?" She sat down. "I'll - Geez, I'll grab Kent and be there as soon as I can. Thanks, Seth." She slammed the phone down and took a deep breath. After she recovered, she shot out of her chair, through her office door, and straight to Clark's cubicle.

Sitting down on the edge of his desk, as if this was any one of their daily casual chats about work, she leaned forward so only he could hear her.

"Lex Luthor just called a press conference downtown."

Clark's face turned from quizzical to shocked. "But he doesn't -"

"Hold press conferences, I know," she finished for him. "This one is in twenty minutes, so I figure we can scoop the whole office if we head out right now."

"When did he decide to do this and how did you find out about it without everyone else finding out, too?"

"About an hour ago and I have a source. Inside Lex Corp," she whispered and grinned.

His face blanched and her grin turned to a frown. "What's the matter?"

"N - Nothing."

She didn't believe that for a second, but there wasn't time to explore it. They had somewhere to be.

"Come on, Kent, time's a-wastin'," she said lightly, and started down the hall to the elevator, not waiting for him to follow.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

(7/14)

**A/N: **We're halfway there! I just want to thank everyone that has been reading this for all the wonderful feedback, and the interest in this story. I hope all of your questions are satisfactorily answered in the end, and that you enjoy the journey. Again, thanks. Feedback is everything to a writer, and I truly appreciate it. :)

* * *

When Clark finally caught up with her, she had her guard back up in full force. He had a funny feeling, and all at once he wanted to investigate it and dismiss it. It would be crazy to ask her what he was thinking, but it was going to eat at him until he did. 

He didn't know what it was, but when she had smiled at him - really smiled - and whispered about her source playfully, it was like Chloe was sitting right in front of him again.

Maybe he had been thinking way too much about her or maybe he still had a lot of digging to do. Either way, the eerie feeling wasn't going away. He kept stealing glances at her all the way down in the elevator and out into the street and she kept pretending not to notice.

They grabbed a taxi downtown to the main Lex Corp office and neither of them said a word the entire way.

A small group of reporters were gathered in the lobby near a podium. Lois grabbed Clark's sleeve when he tried to charge to the front.

"What?" he said, stopping in his tracks.

She dropped her hand and rolled her eyes. "Clark, did it ever occur to you that we're the reason this is happening? Our little story about Lex Corp's misdeeds was published two days ago, remember?"

"Yes."

"Then don't you think we ought to stay toward the back?"

"Maybe you're right."

"Yeah, maybe," she muttered, as they hung back in the crowd.

"He could still see us from up there."

"Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Why be conspicuous?"

"Yeah..." There didn't seem to be many people present, and that seemed odd to him. "Lois?" he said in a low voice.

"Yeah?" She looked up at him as if he was being an annoyance.

"What's the point of a secret press conference?" he asked, thoroughly confused.

She held back a laugh. "The tabloids love Lex, right? So he tries to get the word out as discreetly as he can so only the 'legit' papers show up. Long gone are the days of 'any publicity is good publicity'."

Clark frowned. "That makes no sense at all."

"Yeah, well, that's Lex," she said, turning back to the front of the room.

Two minutes later, there was a rumbling through the gathered press, then silence.

Lex Luthor stood before them all, looking perfectly calm in an exquisitely tailored black suit.

"Thank you all for coming here today," he started cordially.

It was a well known fact that he didn't make many public appearances anymore, so Clark was all the more suspicious of why he would start now.

"I'm sure you are all aware that there were published reports this week about my company, that supposedly brought to light some... shady business, shall we say? I usually don't dignify such rumors with a response, but since this involves not only me, but my company, I thought I would come here today to say that the reports are not true. Lex Corp continues to associate only in upstanding company and above board deals."

Clark could have sworn he saw him glance their way.

"I have nothing more to comment on, there will be no questions, and again, thank you all for coming," he said, and gave the crowd a small wave before walking away.

Lois turned to Clark. "Well. That was totally worth the cab fare and an hour of our morning. If you don't see any assassins in the building gunning for us, I think we should go."

Clark looked around in an exaggerated fashion and narrowed his eyes with a smirk. "I think we're safe, Miss Lane. After you," he said, stepping out of her way and extending his arm with a flourish.

She rolled her eyes at him, and started to walk away. Only this time when he didn't follow, she stopped, turned around, and urged him to catch up.

All he could think as he did was that if his hunch was right, she was going to have a lot of explaining to do.

* * *

As soon as she got home from work, Lois set her single grocery bag on the counter and headed for the shower. Superman was supposed to drop by and, even though she had just seen Clark at work, she wanted to act like she didn't know what was going on. Which would only be half an act at this point. 

When she was finished showering, she quickly dried her hair, and pinned it up, letting a few tendrils fall around her face. She went into her closet and pulled out a black suit skirt, a deep red sleeveless top, and a light, short black suit jacket. She wanted to look casual but professional, and jeans wouldn't hold up to her game.

She added hose and low heels, and glanced at herself in the mirror on the way out of the bedroom. _Not bad at all_, she thought to herself.

In the kitchen, she rummaged through her shopping bag until she found the package of light bulbs. She grabbed one out of the box and went to the balcony to change the light. When that was done, and she was satisfied it was bright enough, she went back inside to sort the rest of her purchases.

She had decided to make this a dinner meeting, given the time, and despite the fact that she was a bit nervous about Clark and his newfound schizophrenia. Her questions and the food might give her enough to focus on so she wouldn't slip up.

It wasn't as if she had never heard of a big city with a crime fighter watching its back. Gotham City had Batman, but that was so far removed from Metropolis she had never really thought about it happening in any real context. Gotham was far away, and no one had ever proven Batman was anything but human.

But this was _Clark_, and she wasn't so sure he was just a human anymore.

She had a small set of furniture out on the balcony, so she set up the table with a cloth and candles, thankful that the night was calm but comfortable. After laying out the dishes and silverware she went to heat up the takeout Italian she had picked up on the way home. She had learned to do a lot of things living on her own, but cooking wasn't something she had mastered.

When everything was ready, she heard a tap on the sliding glass door. Straightening her skirt and smoothing her hair, she checked herself one more time in the hall mirror, and answered the door.

"Good evening, Miss Lane," he said with a smile.

She was trying desperately not to roll her eyes as she smiled back. "Good evening." _God, this is awkward_, she thought. "You could come in, but I thought since it was such a nice night we could make this a dinner meeting, and dine out here." She gestured to the table.

"That sounds very nice, Miss -"

She held up her hand. "Lois. Please," she said. The formalities would annoy her to death if he kept it up.

"That sounds very nice, Lois," he corrected.

"You can have a seat and I'll get the food," she said, turning to go back inside.

"Is there anything I can help with?" he asked.

"Nope, I got it," she said with a smile. "Be right back."

In the kitchen she braced herself on the counter and took a deep breath. I _I can do this. I'm already an actress every day of my life. I_ can _do this._ She grabbed the salad and the shrimp alfredo, and headed out the door. She already had a small bottle of wine chilling outside, and she set the dishes in the middle of the table as Superman stood by her railing looking out over the city.

Lois turned to him. "I'm assuming you eat?" she asked with a frown.

"Often," he laughed.

She feigned relief. "Great. Do you drink?" she asked, indicating the wine. That was an honest question, she had never seen Clark drink before.

"No, actually."

"Oh," she said. "Can I get you anything else?"

"The water will be fine," he said, and she was glad she had remembered to add that at the last minute.

"Okay. Shall we get started then?" she asked, walking over to the table.

He was holding her chair for her before she knew what was happening, and she sat down, trying to comprehend his speed. "Thank you," was all she said as he took his seat opposite her.

They settled in with napkins and generous portions of the non-homemade meal, and Lois' patience had peaked.

"I have a few questions ready, if you don't mind."

"I thought you might," he said, and she could have sworn he was teasing her.

With a quirk of an eyebrow and a glance his way, she tried to compose herself while daintily cutting her pasta.

"What brings you to the Metropolis area?" she asked with a slight tilt of her head.

He shrugged. "I grew up... near here. I thought the city could use someone to look out for it. Crime has gotten worse since Lex Luthor essentially owns everything, and I figured if I could do anything to help, I would."

"Hmmm. So you're from around here?" She took a bite, followed by a sip of wine.

"Well, not originally. But I grew up in Kansas, yes."

He was being dodgy. So typical. She thought for a moment about telling him he could declare he was from another planet, and she wouldn't pass out, but she thought better of it. She could wait.

"So, where were you born?"

"I'm sure you've never heard of it," he said, casually taking a drink of water.

"Try me," she challenged, setting her fork down.

"Krypton," he said, studying the blank look on her face.

"Krypton." She blinked and grabbed her own glass of water. "And that's a...?"

"Another planet," he said simply.

"Another planet. Okay." She switched back to her wine, and took a rather large gulp. She really had to stop repeating everything he said. "Where is this planet located?" she asked, trying to get back on track.

"Nowhere anymore. It was destroyed almost twenty-one years ago. I was the only survivor."

He was telling her all of this with a straight face, so she couldn't do anything but believe him.

"Wow. That's terrible, I'm so sorry."

"It's all right," he said. "I've dealt with it."

She nodded. He had dealt with it right under her nose and she had never been the wiser. No one had. Suddenly every odd thing that he and the Kents had ever done made sense, and she couldn't blame them for it. She would still like certain explanations, but she couldn't blame them.

"About your superpowers - do you have anything but flying?"

"Super speed, heat vision, x-ray vision, cold breath, excellent hearing... I'm also bulletproof."

She nodded, making notes on a small pad beside her. "Any weaknesses?"

"Not any that would be a good idea to tell you about," he said.

"I guess that's understandable," she said, but she already had a good guess. Ever since the 'alien from another planet' reveal, the wheels in her mind had been spinning. Clark had always had a strange reaction to the meteor rocks strewn about Smallville, so she could only conclude that they were not only his weakness, but the leftover bits of his home planet. She didn't know why they affected him that way, but it was something she would never tell anyone. He would be too vulnerable then, especially to their mutual enemy.

They finished their dinner, and he helped her clear the dishes. She couldn't help but think they must make quite a picture with him wearing that getup.

They went back out on the balcony and made small talk as she leaned against the railing, looking out over the city.

"Do you ever miss where you're from?" she asked, turning to look at him.

He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. "Not really. I was just a baby when my parents saved me by sending me away. I really don't remember anything. But sometimes I look up at the stars and try to imagine what it must have been like."

"Does that ever work?"

"Not that effectively," he admitted, staring at her and making her blush.

She opened her mouth, not even knowing what she was going to say, when he held a hand up.

His face fell as she waited. "Sounds like someone needs help."

"Oh, of course. Go," she said, even though she didn't really want him to.

He stepped out on the ledge. "Thank you for dinner, Lois. I'll be seeing you around."

"You bet you will," she said with a smile and a wave as he took off into the night sky.

She watched him until he was gone and wrapped her arms around herself against the chill that was suddenly in the air. She sighed and turned to go back inside, feeling the loss of his company. She had forgotten what it was like to just _be_ with someone else, she had been so involved with her work and her version of the witness protection program. Her apartment looked and felt emptier than ever.

She flopped down on her couch and went over the evening.

Lois didn't know who he thought he was fooling, but he hadn't broken the facade once. If she saw him like that again, she would break him down. She didn't think confronting him as himself would work. If she sprang that on him in a public place, everyone would think _she_ was nuts. The hair and the glasses... How stupid did he think Metropolis was?

She couldn't think about it anymore. _Yeah, right_, she thought. She just wanted to take out her contacts, curl up with some _X-Files_ re-runs, and go to sleep. Everything else could wait until morning.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

(8/14)

No one had been in trouble, but Clark couldn't take anymore. He paced his apartment, convinced more than ever that Lois Lane did not exist. Chloe Sullivan was alive and well, and he didn't know what to do. Everything added up upon closer inspection, and even though he felt he might have slightly violated her privacy by checking out certain things, he felt he had to do it.

She did a good job with makeup, but _he_ could still see the moles on her left cheek that only Chloe could have. Just to be certain, he had used his x-ray vision while she was walking away. She possessed a birth mark in a place only Chloe could.

He wanted to tell her he knew and he wanted to yell at her at the same time. He understood her reasons, but wondered if _she_ understood exactly how many lives she had destroyed by faking her own death.

Why hadn't she come to him for help?

Things hadn't been the best between them at that point, he remembered, and he had been too wrapped up in himself and Lana's impending departure to think about what kind of danger she was really in. Chloe had never voiced her concerns to him, but then she rarely had. She was always trying to take care of herself, and put on a strong face for the world.

Surely if she had asked for a little assistance they could have taken less drastic measures to save her life.

It didn't matter now. Apparently she had done what she felt she had to do, and he really had no right to blame her.

Now he needed to prove his suspicions were right.

He was at her apartment in under a minute and he impatiently knocked on her door. It was midnight, but if he was right, she wouldn't be asleep. She never was before three in the morning.

* * *

Lois was startled by knocking on her door and wondered who would be at her place this late. She was curled up on her couch in her pajamas, perfectly content with Mulder and Scully as company, but she got up to check the peephole anyway. 

She groaned when she saw Clark's face. He couldn't see her. Her contacts were out, and he was already acting weird, _besides_ the superhero thing. But, if she didn't answer the door he might break it down, and she could live without that.

Finally she decided to open the door, see what he wanted, and hope the dim light would protect her. There didn't seem to be an alternative.

* * *

When she finally opened the door, Clark looked her up and down without a word. The white and blue striped pajamas and the ponytail never registered once he saw her face. 

Her blue-gray eyes - _Chloe's_ eyes - looked up at him questioningly.

He didn't know what happened, but something inside of him snapped, and the next thing he knew his lips were on hers, she was in his arms, and he swung them both inside her apartment, shutting the door with his foot.

Her arms had gone around his waist, trying to steady herself, but she fell into his kiss.

Clark had her up against the wall and he felt he was pouring every emotion he had into their kiss. All of the loss, longing, passion, anger, grief, and love he had experienced in the last seven years was in that kiss, and when he finally broke it, the girl beneath him was desperately gasping for air.

Her fists were clutched in the front of his denim jacket as she asked furiously, "What the hell do you think you're doing, Clark?"

"I don't know, Chloe."

She looked stricken. "I'm not my cousin, Kent." She tried to push him away, but she might as well have been battling a brick wall.

"You can drop the act. I know who you are."

Tears were welling up in her eyes, but her voice was deadly calm. "Get off of me. Now."

He took a step back and she removed herself from between him and the wall.

Her cover was blown. What was she going to do now?

"You don't know anything."

"I know that I've thought you were dead for the last seven years."

"Chloe Sullivan _is_ dead. You need to accept that and move on." The pain in her eyes was one thing she would never be able to deny.

"Have _you_?" he shot back.

"I've had to let go of a hell of a lot of things. Don't act like you have any idea what that's like."

"Do you have any idea what that did to the people who cared about you?"

"Oh, no. Don't you even go there, Clark. What I did was for everyone's sake, not just mine. My dad might think I'm dead, but if I hadn't done this, he really would be. I decided living his life without me would be better for him than not living at all. If the Luthors had had their way, that is exactly what would've happened. My dad would never have been safe as long as they thought I was alive. They weren't interested in him; they'd already ruined him sufficiently. Lionel wanted _me_ out of his hair for good."

"I wasn't just talking about your father."

"Did you care, Clark?" She narrowed her eyes, the bitterness finally choosing to arrive. "Did you really? Because I don't seem to remember you offering to help me out of the mess I was in. You said you would always be there for me, you would always protect me, but where were you? A simple 'Chloe, can I help?' would've meant everything, even if I hadn't accepted.

"But that didn't happen, did it? You were too busy losing your mind over Lana leaving, and God knows what else, to notice that the Luthors probably had it out for me. I put Lionel in prison, did you think they were just gonna let that go?"

He had absolutely no idea what to say, though a million things had rushed through his mind only minutes earlier.

"You know what? It doesn't matter. I was a stupid, selfish teenager, and I got myself into a colossal mess. I was the only one that could get myself out of it, and I did. I think we're both pretty clear on what would happen if Lex found out I was still hanging out in his backyard. As far as he's concerned, Chloe Sullivan died to protect your secrets and her father. End of story."

"Hardly," Clark said. "You want me to just walk out of here and pretend I never figured out the truth?"

"I don't care what you do as long as you walk out of here," she said, but her voice indicated she was running out of steam.

"I can't do that."

"Would you rather fly?" She fixed him with a glare.

Her question made his heart drop.

At his silence she gave a mirthless laugh.

"I'm not the only one that has a secret identity, now am I? I've got news for you, buddy. I knew you before the glasses and the geek act."

"So are you gonna run and write an exclusive for the Planet?"

Her eyes practically shot fire. "If I had one of those meteor rocks, you'd be in a lot of trouble right now."

"I guess I'm lucky they've been 'eradicated', at least according to our mutual friend, Lex."

"Like hell they have. You might be out of luck yet," she said nastily.

Things were escalating to a point he had never wanted or expected them to go and he wanted it to end.

"I didn't mean that. I'm sorry," he said. He should have known better, but his anger at her deceit had taken over.

"Didn't you, Clark? You never trusted me. Not they way you should have. Not the way I wanted you to."

"It wasn't that, Chloe." This time she physically winced at the sound of her real name. "I couldn't tell anyone. My parents knew, and that was it. Until Pete found out, but that was accidental, and it almost cost him his life. I couldn't lay that on anyone else; not intentionally. There were too many people like the Luthors that would have gladly used my friends against me. Lionel tried to, and you didn't even know anything."

"I didn't know _much_. I always knew you were strange."

He would have to give her that. "We have a lot to talk about."

"You always were the king of the understatement."

He smiled at that, and she tried to reciprocate, but failed miserably. Her tears were back, and he could see the anger draining from her body.

She desperately tried to wipe them away, but only wound up with her face in her hands. "Dammit, Clark, how did everything get so screwed up?"

He took two steps forward and carefully drew her into his arms. "I don't know. We were kids trying to act like adults. It turns out we really didn't know everything."

"No kidding," she sobbed into his chest.

He held her tighter and closed his eyes, feeling her, breathing her. He was so happy she was alive, but it hadn't really sunk in. It had only been minutes since he had received confirmation and it all seemed too much like one of his dreams.

Except the woman currently soaking his shirt front couldn't be a dream. She was too much of a mess, and so was he.

He picked her up as if she were a rag doll and carried her to the couch. He set her down, gathered some Kleenex, and took a seat beside her.

"Brand new woman, still a crier," she tried to laugh through her tears.

"Here," he handed her a tissue. "It's okay. I wouldn't blame you if you cried for awhile."

"You're not still angry?"

"We'll get into that later."

Chloe sighed. "My life is a disaster, Clark. And I just knew it was going to get messier the day you walked back into my life."

"You say that as if I were a trouble magnet."

"Shut up." She curled her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them.

"You have everything you ever wanted, Chloe. Just not exactly _how_ you wanted it."

"Clark, none of it means anything when you're on the run. You ought to know at least that much."

"You didn't run very far."

"Yeah, well, he didn't think it would be a good idea to run that far. Something about hiding in plain sight," she said, wiping her eyes and wadding up the tissue.

"'He'?" Clark asked.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

(9/14)

"Somehow I forgot about the long story I was going to have to tell." She settled further into the corner of the couch and grabbed a pillow. She held it against her chest, and she didn't care if it looked like she was putting a barrier between herself and Clark. It was a distinct possibility in her condition.

"My Uncle Sam."

Clark looked at her skeptically.

"Yes, wiseguy, I have a _real_ Uncle Sam."

"I believe you," he teased.

"Uh huh. Anyway, he helped me... die, essentially. I didn't know who to go to that would know anything about a good cover up. He's military, and I knew he'd done a lot of covert ops.

"The messy part was my new identity. I am the reincarnation of his supposedly deceased daughter."

Clark's eyes went wide. "And that was whose idea?"

"His, actually."

"Wow."

"Yeah, I thought so, too." She shifted, trying to get comfortable, and trying to accept the fact she never would be comfortable with any of this. "As you know, I really did have a cousin named Lois, but we weren't identical. However, we looked enough alike that at that age I could pass for her."

"But what happened to the real Lois?" Clark asked.

"Leading to another long story... When she was thirteen and I was twelve, she went missing from a military base in Texas. No trace of her was ever found, even though Uncle Sam exhausted every avenue, through every channel and agency he had access to or could strongarm into helping him. It was always assumed she was kidnapped, and she was declared dead two years later. I have a younger cousin, Lucy, and her parents just decided there was nothing left to go after, and it was taking too much of a toll on the family. It had anyway. My aunt died a year and a half after that from cancer. I never talked about it because it was too painful. I was close to Lois at one time, and I was so young. I never wanted to admit the possibility she was gone for good.

"So... when I got into trouble and came to him for help, he cooked up this plan. Only Chloe Sullivan couldn't die one day, while Lois Lane miraculously turned up the next, so I had to go into hiding for about a year.

"I always hoped that Lionel would be put away and Lex would eventually get caught on some shady charges of his own, but that never happened. Eleven months after I 'died', 'Lois' was found in a small town in Montana, finally abandoned by her abductor. She escaped and came home to daddy, and I've been Lois Lane ever since."

"God, Chloe, if I had -"

"Don't," she held up a hand. "That's not going to do either of us any good."

He shut his mouth, but he was still looking at her sadly.

"Anyway, I never finished telling you how I survived an exploding house."

"Right," he said, trying to slip into objective reporter mode.

"My uncle had the safe house swept, but since I was determined to disappear, he didn't report the explosives. Instead, he found a basement-slash-bunker underneath the house, and decided we'd use that. Dad was never supposed to get hurt at all, but the driver couldn't keep him distracted long enough, and he followed in behind me too closely. I was supposed to go into the house, run into the basement with Uncle Sam, and the house was supposed to explode before Dad got there. But he was nearly to the door by the time everything happened, and they told me it blew him about forty feet, he'd sustained broken bones, and some potentially serious burns.

"I almost gave it up then, but after a couple of days my uncle convinced me he was going to be fine, and we went through with everything we'd planned. A small article ran about Lois' return a few months later, and no one ever noticed the connection. Uncle Sam and Dad have never been close, and they hadn't spoken since my mother left, so I didn't think it would register with him one way or another, and apparently it never has."

"I wish I knew what to say," Clark said, finally settling back on her couch.

"I wouldn't expect you to. It's all kind of convoluted if you think about it long and hard enough, but that's how closely people pay attention to things, I guess."

"Do you keep up with Gabe?" he asked.

"Of course. I have eyes everywhere, ya know. I just want to know he's all right, though that will never make up for what I did to him."

"There wasn't any other way?" he asked with a frown.

She shrugged and laid her head over on the back of the couch. "Clark, I was seventeen. Maybe I wouldn't have handled the situation the same at twenty-four, but all I could think about was what the Luthors would do to me and my family if I didn't disappear. I'm not proud of myself for being such a coward, but I _was_ right. That house was rigged with ten pounds of explosives, which was at least nine pounds more than they would've needed to efficiently get rid of me. Everyone had to know that Lionel was the only person after me, and the only person that would hate me enough to do his best to dissolve my very atoms.

"But they could never _prove_ it in a court of law, and he had all of my evidence destroyed, so he walked free until his liver disease finally killed him. And I'm not going to lie to you, I had myself a little party the day that bastard died."

"I imagine everyone did. What does Lex have to do with all of this? I mean, I know what he is now, but then..."

"He was in league with his father the whole time. He tried to pull one over on all of us with his little 'I'm trying so hard to be good' routine, but I went to him for help first, and that's when I realized it. It was already too late, he'd pulled an Anakin Skywalker, and he didn't want his father put away for life. He knew he'd get power over the company soon enough with his father sick, and he wanted him free and able to willingly give up all his evil little secrets.

"I was horrified when I realized how we'd all been scammed, but there just wasn't time to warn anyone, and I couldn't leave anything behind without it looking like the setup it was. I'm sorry, Clark."

"It doesn't matter. After your death and Lionel's trial things came to a head anyway. I accused him of everything you just said, and he still tried to act like he wanted to be my friend. I could never prove he had anything to do with it, so I started to doubt myself later on, thinking it was just my grief and anger looking for a place to land. Now that I know I was right, he better watch his back."

Chloe shook her head. "If only Lex was that easy to get to."

Clark raised an eyebrow.

"All I'll say is good luck, and I don't want to know any more."

"Fair enough," he reasoned.

"What happened after the fallout with Lex?"

"I finished high school. My dad died six months after graduation."

Chloe grabbed his hand. "I'm so sorry, Clark. Your father was a good man. I wanted to say something sooner, but I just couldn't."

"I know." He squeezed her hand and abruptly let it go, and she tried not to look hurt. "Mom and I got by the best we could, and once I had her set up with her business and help on the farm, I transferred from community college to Edge City. It hadn't been my first choice, but it was far enough away that I could breathe again. For reasons I'm not going to get into, I blamed myself for Dad's death, and I needed some time to sort through that. But maybe no place is ever really far enough when you have super speed." He shrugged. "I finally finished college a year ago, and I moved back to Smallville and worked for The Ledger for awhile. But nothing was ever the same. Even though pretty much anywhere's close for me, my mom wanted me nearby, so I moved here. My recommendations from my internships and The Ledger seemed to get me the job at the Planet pretty quickly, and here I am."

"Here _we_ are," Chloe laughed. "As bizarre a pair as the world has ever seen."

"Anything else, or is story time over?" he asked hopefully.

"Nope. Two more questions."

"Yeah?"

"The tights?" she said, biting back a smile.

"I decided I had to do something good and useful with my abilities," he said honestly.

"Sounds good to me. Now... The kiss?"

Clark immediately turned red. _I still got it_, she thought.

"I was overwhelmed, that's all. I don't know what got into me."

If he intended to break what was left of her heart, she was going to kill him. "Clark."

He sighed. "A lot of things hit me hard after you were... gone. Not the least of which how I really felt about you."

Her heart dropped to her feet. Of all the things she didn't need to hear, this was at the top of her list.

"Clark, if you're going to say what I think you're going to say, please don't. I can't handle it," she said, clutching her pillow tighter. "It was a long time ago." Never mind that the 'long time ago' factor hadn't erased her feelings for him. The alien factor couldn't even change her mind. She was doomed.

"No, it wasn't a long time ago. I never got over you."

_Oh, the irony_, she thought. He was finally spilling his guts, and her snarky brain wouldn't shut up.

She closed her eyes and wondered if this was what dying inside felt like. She couldn't make herself look at him, even as she felt him grasp her hand and pull her closer. "No, Clark, please," she pleaded.

"I love you, Chloe. I've been waiting forever to tell you that," he said softly.

A sob welled up deep inside her chest and broke through and there was nothing she could do to keep from crumbling. Tears fell down her cheeks as she finally opened her eyes to look into his. "I had to die for you to realize that?" she asked, her voice breaking.

"I'm sorry. I've regretted it every day; not realizing it before and not being there when you needed me. You have been the ghost that haunted me every day and, now that you're here, safe with me, I don't ever want to make that mistake again."

One of his hands was wiping away her tears as the other slipped under her hair, around to the base of her skull. She leaned into his touch knowing she could so easily make one mistake she would never look back on with any regrets at all.

He freed her ponytail of its holder as she rose to kneel before him on the couch. Her arms went around his neck as his lips found hers and his hands slipped underneath her loose pajama top, massaging circles into her back. She moaned into his kisses as she shifted, straddling his lap and settling there.

Their breathing was erratic, and neither of them could do anything but feel.

Chloe came up for air as Clark moved down to her throat, and her mind began to clear, if only a little.

"Clark? Clark!"

"Hmm?" he hummed against her neck as he nibbled on it.

"Oh God," she muttered. Maybe she should just stop thinking. "We can't..."

Clark raised his head, looking wary. "Are you all right?" he asked, his eyes full of concern.

"I'm -" She ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. _Damn you, Clark_, she thought as she looked at him, but she couldn't say it. _Damn you for doing this to me again._ The only thing different this time was that she could feel how much he wanted her, and she could see in his eyes that he really meant it. He wanted _her_. She wasn't a stand-in, a substitute, or a place holder for someone else. "I'm fine," she said finally. "Kiss me."

Looking relieved, he did so. After a few more moments, she halted him again, and could see he was getting increasingly frustrated.

"Just one thing, I swear," she said, and giggled a bit at the impatience written across his face.

"What?" he asked, tugging her a little closer to remind her why they were there.

"This whole, um... alien thing?" she said uncomfortably. "Can you, well, you know?"

"Yes," he said with a roll of his eyes.

"Have you?" She resisted the urge to bury her face in his shoulder. Her logical side had to get some things out of the way, but that didn't make it easy.

"No."

"No. Okay."

"I think I get the general idea though," he said sarcastically.

She figured as much as she blushed bright red.

"Just so we get all the questioning out of the way, have you?"

She had started this, and she could see he was going to enjoy torturing her with it.

"Once. Ages ago, and I mean that literally." His eyebrows raised and she shook her head. "Not only did it not mean anything, I don't want to go into it."

He didn't push her. "All right."

She leaned her forehead against his. "I still love you, Clark. I never stopped. Just - Please, shut me up."

Clark smiled. "I'm not going to hurt you. I swear I'll never hurt you again. I'll be gentle, but if you get scared you have to tell me."

"I'm scared now." She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tightly.

"Me, too," he admitted. "I'm afraid this is all some cruel dream and I'm going to wake up."

She pulled back to look at him, and ran her thumb along his cheek. "It's definitely not a dream, Clark." She shifted in his lap, causing him to practically growl as he leaned forward to kiss her again.

Her fears were forgotten as he stood up, her legs still wrapped around his waist, and headed toward her bedroom.

* * *

Clark watched the woman beside him breathe while she slept and it was enough. In his wildest dreams he had never imagined he would be where he was now. They had both been so alone and somehow found each other again. 

He would have found her sooner if he had known to look for her. He hated thinking about all the time they had lost and all they had each gone through, but he was grateful to have her back.

He smiled as he remembered how she had accepted him so easily and encouraged him as they made love. It was everything and nothing like he had expected. He resisted the urge to wake her up, pull her into his arms, and make it all happen again.

Instead, he pushed her hair away from her face and became still as she shifted, reaching out for him.

"I'm here," he whispered, drawing her close.

She snuggled into his shoulder for a moment before opening her eyes. She rolled far enough away to get a good look at him and smiled sleepily. "What day is it and who is this gorgeous man in my bed?" she asked and stifled a yawn.

"It's Friday, and..." he looked around, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Chloe laughed lightly. "Is it hard to be that humble?"

"Not usually. But when a gorgeous _woman_ says something like that, it becomes increasingly difficult," he teased.

She flung her left arm out and reached for the clock on her bedside table. "It's only five? I can sleep two more hours," she said, replacing the clock and rolling over, no longer facing him.

He grabbed her and rolled her over on her back, glaring at her when he saw the grin on her face. Her _real_ grin.

"Tease," he said, kissing her.

"Mmm," she murmured against him. "I've been called worse."

She was going to pay for that and he knew exactly how.

Neither of them was likely to make it to work on time.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

(10/14)

Chloe opened her eyes and blinked sleepily. She definitely wasn't used to waking up beside anyone, but she decided she wouldn't mind _getting_ used to it.

Clark was thoroughly male, despite being from another planet, and that included passing out not too long after they were both spent. She didn't really mind since she was worn out, too. A quick shift of her legs told her she was going to be very sore, but she didn't care.

Chloe Sullivan was no longer dead to the _whole_ world. She still couldn't believe that Clark was with her and felt the same way she did. It would be easy to dwell on the past and all the years they lost, but she was content to focus on the present, and, hopefully, the future.

She sat up carefully, wrapping the sheet around herself, and watched him sleep. He had never looked more peaceful or more beautiful in her eyes.

Looking at the clock, she saw it was already seven-thirty, and she had an early meeting with the Chief. She had told him she had a big story brewing about Superman and he wanted to see her first thing in the morning.

"Crap," she muttered to herself as she let the sheet fall and climbed out of bed. Clark caught her hand at the last second.

"Where're you going?" he mumbled almost incoherently.

She laughed. "Work, Clark. Remember that?"

"Uh uh," he said stubbornly, tugging at her fingers.

"I have a meeting with Mr. White in exactly thirty minutes. Are you gonna let me go or get me in trouble?"

He pulled her down close enough to kiss her. "I've always liked trouble myself," he said as his lips began an assault on her neck.

She rolled her eyes even as she wanted to forget about the outside world and call in sick for the next week. "I know you do. But these days I'm actually trying to stay out of it. You're not helping."

"I don't really feel like being helpful," he said as he sat up and wrapped his arms around her. His strong hands running up and down her back were making her crazy, but she couldn't afford to give in.

"I have to go, Clark. I'm going to be late as it is."

"Do you want me to take you?" he said with a grin.

"I think the experimental transportation can wait for another time. I'll get there myself." She kissed him thoroughly and slipped out of his grasp as he was distracted.

At his disappointed look she said, "I told you I have to go."

"Fine. I'll see you at work."

"Yes, and don't forget you're the only one who knows who I really am." She had to be sure he remembered that. "You have to remember to call me Lois unless we're alone."

"I won't forget," he assured her.

"I know, but we have to be careful."

He nodded as she headed for the shower.

When she came back into the bedroom, Clark had his jeans on and was trying to find his shirt.

"Other side of the bed," she said as she grabbed her purse.

"Right," he said, finding it and putting it on.

He kissed her quickly and reluctantly sent her on her way. "I love you, Chloe," he said, knowing it was the last time they could be themselves for the day.

"I love you, too. I'll see you tonight, Clark," she said and hurried out the door.

* * *

Five minutes after Chloe left, Clark heard a scream that could only be her. By the time he sped to the point of origin, there was no one there and, as hard as he tried, he could no longer hear her. 

What had happened between the front door of her building and two blocks away from the Planet?

He went to the Planet offices to see if she had made it there. He checked her office first, then went to Mr. White's to see if she was there. His secretary wasn't in yet, so he knocked directly on the office door.

"Come in!" Mr. White bellowed.

Clark entered and looked around.

"You're not Lane," his boss pointed out.

"No. She's not here?" Clark asked nervously.

"No, not yet. She's got two minutes to be on time for our meeting."

"I don't think she's going to be on time," Clark said.

"What does that mean, Kent? And why do you look like hell, son?"

In his haste he had completely forgotten his rumpled appearance. "I - uh, Lois asked me to meet her this morning before she came down here. Something about a big story -"

"Same thing she told me," Mr. White interrupted.

"But when I got to her apartment, there was no one there," he lied. "So I started out in this general direction and I heard a scream. By the time I got there, whoever it was had vanished."

Mr. White frowned. "Do you think something happened to her, Kent?"

"I'm afraid it might have, sir." He couldn't figure out how everything had happened too fast for _him_.

"You better hoof it down to the police station, then. Report back here in an hour and I'll call down to the station if she turns up."

"Yes, sir," Clark said uncertainly.

As he left the newspaper offices it felt like a boulder was settling in his stomach. He wasn't going to lose her again and whoever had her was going to be sorry once he was finished with them.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

(11/14)

All Chloe could remember was an all-encompassing blackness as she slowly regained consciousness. She was on her way to work and then, nothing. Blinking her way out of the haze, she tried to move only to find that she couldn't.

Her mouth was dry and she could tell she was gagged. Wherever she was, it was dark and she could feel that her wrists and ankles were bound to the chair she was sitting in.

_Oh, God,_ she thought, desperately trying to see through the dimness. Where was Clark? She remembered screaming; surely he had heard her.

Her eyes squeezed shut as a bright light came on and she slowly opened her eyes as they adjusted. She saw at least four bright lights and what looked like the dull silver of lead all around her. She gulped as she remembered Clark telling her that lead was the only thing that would protect him from Kryptonite and the only thing that he couldn't see through. Whoever was holding her knew Superman's weaknesses and that didn't bode well for her chances of getting out.

Feeling the need to try, she began screaming beneath the gag in her mouth and finally gave up when the light in front of her was suddenly blocked. She blinked, bringing a round, bald head clearly in focus.

Her heart skipped a beat as she realized what was happening. Lex was standing in front of her, a grim smile on his face.

"Well, well, well, Miss Sullivan. We meet again," he said.

Chloe's eyes widened and the panic coursing through her veins was undeniable. She was caught and there was no escape.

"Don't look so surprised, Chloe," Lex said calmly. "Surely you didn't think you could hide forever."

She was looking at him with all the hatred she had held inside for so many years.

"I can tell you have something to say and, since your screams can't be heard here, I think I'll let you," he said cooly, and with a wave of his hand one of his minions appeared and removed her gag.

She struggled to make her tongue work and finally worked up enough saliva to get started. "Go to hell!"

"Oh, now, Chloe, you can do better than that."

"What do you want with me?"

"You're complicating things for me - as usual," he said with a sneer. "That little unfounded exposé of yours has the EPA and several county agencies breathing down my neck and I don't appreciate it."

"Woe is you," Chloe said dryly.

Lex gave her a half-smile. "I'm afraid your witty, if juvenile, banter won't get you out of this one."

"If you're so innocent, Lex, what are you worried about?" she asked evenly.

"That's just it -" Another flick of his fingers, and another of his people appeared with a large syringe that was filled with a glowing, bright green liquid. "I'm not really innocent."

_I knew that_, she thought, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of telling him so.

She was perfectly still as the minion gave Lex the syringe and he started toward her.

"I usually hate doing my own dirty work," he said. "But I think I'm going to thoroughly enjoy this."

* * *

Clark, in his Superman uniform, flew over the city for the second time, but he still had no clue where Chloe was. He had reported back to the Chief and been given permission to look for her. _Like lack of permission would stop me_, he thought as he x-rayed everything in sight again.

He wasn't sure who her abductors were, but the only thought that made sense was Lex. A thorough search of the downtown Lex Corp property had yielded nothing. He would have to get into Lex's office and see if he could find anything concrete. He had to find Chloe and he couldn't think of anyone else that would have a vendetta against her.

He landed on the roof of the Lex Corp offices and easily found the stairwell door. He was in Lex's office in a flash and he made sure the door was locked before he started searching.

The papers on Lex's desk all seemed innocent enough, so Clark began to x-ray the file cabinets and the safe.

He found a list of Luthor properties in one of the cabinets, and scanned it until he found something of interest.

Lex owned land ten miles outside of the city and, even though the maps showed no buildings there, he thought it was worth checking out. He could be holding Chloe anywhere and it disturbed him that it was apparently somewhere he couldn't trace her voice.

Flying over the property, he found nothing but land; empty properties that were designated for future development or housing projects.

He was discouraged only a moment, until an awful thought occurred to him and he began to scan the ground.

"There you are," he said to himself. There was a large underground structure in the middle of one of the fields, but that was as far as he could see. _Lead, _he thought. It seemed that Lex knew a great deal, but Clark couldn't fathom how he had known that Superman couldn't see through lead.

Then again, it was likely Lex had people everywhere and he couldn't underestimate what he did and didn't know. He was also willing to bet that the structure had something to do with Lex Corp's ongoing Kryptonite experiments, so he had no clue what he would find waiting for him.

All he knew was that Chloe had to be in there, suffering at his former friend's hands, and he had to save her.

He came to rest on the ground above the underground fortress and started to look for an entrance. Another scan of the ground revealed a hidden trap door and he opened it. He zipped down the small set of stairs to the underground entrance, only to find it sealed.

If that was the best Lex could do, he had obviously underestimated Superman.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

(12/14)

As the bright lights assaulted her senses again, Chloe groaned. _I wish I'd stop coming to,_ she thought, a bit lightheaded from whatever her maniacal captor had been doing to her.

Lex was still standing over her, waiting until she fully regained consciousness to pump the next poison into her system.

"_You're_ still here," she deadpanned.

"I wouldn't be so smug," he said, twirling the syringe between his fingers. "_You_ won't be here much longer."

"Oh, great! Maybe I can get home in time for dinner. I'll just tell the boss I couldn't make it in today because I was being held prisoner by a psychopath. I'm sure he'll understand," she said in a false cheerful tone.

"I don't know if he'll understand, but I'm sure he'll come to your funeral."

Chloe rolled her eyes. _What am I? In a movie? Is he just going to stand there talking about killing me all day? If he's going to, he needs to hurry up. But no. Talk, talk, talk..._

"I just have one more thing to ask you before the service, Lex," she smirked.

He cocked an eyebrow.

"How did you know I was still alive?" She had to know why she had been safe for seven years and why he was trying to off her now.

"I know a lot of things, Chloe. But I have to admit I didn't know you were still around till you and Clark came to see me that day."

_Thanks, Chief,_ she thought. "So you knew, right when I walked into your office?"

He shrugged. "It was a good try, but just a little too convenient. I like the brunette though," he leered.

"You always did," she said with disgust.

"Time for your medicine," he mocked and grabbed her arm, ready to inject her with a red liquid.

Before the needle could puncture the flesh of her forearm again, she heard a piercing screech a thousand times worse than nails on a chalkboard.

She cringed but couldn't cover her ears. Lex briefly forgot the needle and turned to see what was happening.

He shouted at his personnel, but it was already too late. They were nowhere to be found and Superman was standing in the middle of the room.

* * *

"Don't touch her again," he said, his voice deadly.

Lex shook his head. "Clark! You know I wouldn't hurt a fly."

Clark wasn't surprised Lex knew who he was. He seemed to know everything else about him. "That's Superman."

Lex laughed. "Do you really think a pair of glasses is going to hide your identity from the world?"

"Let her go."

"Sorry, don't think so. But I'm so glad you decided to drop by. It's almost like old home week, without all those secrets and lies that Lana Lang was always blathering on about," he laughed again.

Clark sped over to Chloe, broke her bonds, and carried her out the door he had ripped off. "Stay here," he instructed and she nodded weakly.

He came back and stood before Lex.

"Damn. I knew I made this too easy," Lex said with a mock pout. "Especially since you and your little reporter gal pal make everything so difficult for me."

"Forgive us for trying to save innocent lives. And forgive me for thinking you were ever worth saving," Clark said bitterly. If he glared at his enemy any harder, he would literally be burning holes in him.

"You have nothing to apologize for, Clark. One cannot fight their true nature," he said dramatically.

"It didn't have to be this way."

"Oh, but it did. I see you've retained your farm boy naiveté, but it won't serve you well. Not doing what you do," Lex said, indicating the cape and tights. He narrowed his eyes. "I never saw you as a spandex kinda guy."

"This has to stop, Lex," Clark said. He didn't want to use drastic measures, but he had a feeling he would be forced to, especially since Lex had a syringe full of red Kryptonite in his hand.

"It can't stop, Clark. There's too much to explore."

"You know those rocks have never done anything but harm people."

"You know, don't you, Clark? You know where they came from."

"You want to do this the hard way? I can do that," Clark said and charged him. When he got within ten feet of Lex, he suddenly stopped.

"I don't think you can," Lex said, as confident as ever.

Clark x-rayed him, only to find shards of Kryptonite lining the pockets of his jacket.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

(13/14)

Chloe had no idea why Clark always told her to stay put. He had to know better by now. _God only knows how much Kryptonite is in there, does he think I'm going to leave him alone?_ she thought as she made her way back into the stark silver laboratory.

She sneaked along the walls behind the tall metal racks that held supplies and instruments. She watched the confrontation between Clark and Lex, and her worst fears were realized when she saw Clark rush him and stop dead in his tracks.

She should have known. They both should have known that Lex wouldn't go into this unprotected.

As she moved closer she held her breath, watching and waiting for an opening to help Clark. Lex was practically stalking him, and Clark was stumbling back, trying to reason with an increasingly unreasonable enemy.

"I am going to do things no one's ever dreamed of," Lex said.

"Experimenting on innocents? Wreaking havoc on unsuspecting populations? I think Hitler beat you to the punch," Clark shot back.

Chloe crept up behind Lex just as he pulled a large meteor rock from his pocket. She grabbed a metal tray from the table beside the chair where she had been held.

Lex turned as he heard the contents of the tray clatter to the floor. She pulled back and hit him in the head as hard as she could.

He crumpled to the floor and she hurried over to Clark. "Are you okay?" she asked, helping him move away from Lex's body.

"I'm fine." He looked to where Lex lay on the floor, bleeding from his temple. "I'm not so sure about him."

Chloe knelt beside Lex and took off his jacket, then got it as far away from Clark as possible. When she came back, she checked his pulse, and looked up at Clark with wide eyes. "He's still alive, but barely."

"You hit him pretty hard."

"He was trying to hurt you."

"I know," he said. He picked Lex up and said, "Let's get out of here. You need to call the police."

Once they were outside, Clark laid Lex on the ground and Chloe called 911 on her cell.

She put a hand over the mouthpiece once the operator had taken her initial information and told her to hold on so she could dispatch the help. "Couldn't you just take him yourself?"

Clark shook his head. "I don't know what the speed would do to him, Chloe. Tell them Lex Luthor has been seriously injured and Metropolis General should send a helicopter."

She nodded and relayed the pertinent information, adding that they would need plenty of police and a hazardous materials unit.

When she was assured they were on their way, she punched the off button with a sigh.

"What a lovely day," she said sarcastically as Clark pulled her into his arms.

"It started out that way," Clark said.

"Now it kinda sucks," she concluded.

Clark kissed her on the top of her head and let her go a few minutes later when they saw a helicopter approaching over the horizon.

"Now the fun begins," she said as the helicopter landed in the field and medics poured out.

They got Lex on a stretcher and stabilized him as best they could before taking off for the hospital. Ten minutes later the police arrived, and "Lois and Superman" spent the better part of the next hour explaining what had happened.

When the police were satisfied with their statements and had called in backup to search the lab, they let them go.

Chloe accepted a ride back to Metropolis from one of the police officers who insisted on taking her to the hospital to be checked out first. Superman took off with a wave and she knew he would be waiting for her when she got there.

At the hospital, Clark rushed in as a nurse was taking her blood.

"I came as soon as I heard," he lied for the benefit of the lady standing next to them. "Are you all right?" he asked, adjusting his glasses.

"They say I'm fine. Mostly I'm sore. The doctor told me he couldn't find any immediate effects of you-know-what," she said with a conspiratorial look, "but they're taking blood to make sure. And of course they told me to come back if anything odd starts happening."

"Let's hope not," Clark said nervously.

"Hmm," she agreed as the nurse finished up. "Thank you," Chloe said and the nurse nodded as she left.

Clark pulled the curtain around her bed and pulled her to him. He kissed her thoroughly before letting her go so she could catch her breath.

"I missed you, too," she laughed.

"It's not funny, Lois," he said, somehow remembering to address her by her alias. "I didn't know where you were. I couldn't hear you, I couldn't find you anywhere. That... scared me." His face was serious.

"I was scared, too, Clark. I didn't know if I was ever going to see you again." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "I would never have left my apartment alone this morning if I had known Lex had found me."

"Yeah, about Lex," he said, pulling back but still in the circle of her arms.

"Did he make it to the hospital?"

"He's on life support. His brain is bleeding and they don't know if he's going to make it."

Chloe's face fell. "I wish I could say I'm sorry, Clark, but -"

"I know. I'm not either."

She stroked the hair at the back of his head. "You always did all you could do for him."

"Did I?"

"You did more than anyone and he still wouldn't fight hard enough to be good. If you couldn't help him, no one could," she tried to assure him.

"I wish I could believe that," he said sadly.

She knew he hated to lose anyone to the dark and that was just one of so many things she loved about him. "Please believe it," she said, kissing him.

"Come on," he said. "I'll take you home."

"I like the sound of that," she said, hopping off the hospital bed.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **I want to thank every single one of you for reading, and hanging in there with me. :) This story is near and dear to my heart, so every review has meant more than you could know. I'm only sorry this thing doesn't have a reply feature, or I would've answered each of them. I hope you find this conclusion satisfactory, and thanks again for all the interest and the kind words.

* * *

(14/14) 

Monday morning, Clark entered Chloe's bedroom, _Daily Planet_ in hand.

"Wake up, sleepy head," he said, sitting down beside her.

"Huh? What? Is something wrong?" she said, slightly disoriented.

Clark laughed. "Not anymore." He laid the paper down beside her. The headline read: **Witness, Protected** and featured a split shot of Chloe, pre and post-Lois. Below that was the story of her ordeal and the corruption that ran deep within the Luthor family. Clark was beyond proud of her.

She sat up in bed and scanned the front page. "People are going to think I'm insane," she said, but she was smiling.

"People are going to be grateful that you took down Lex Luthor."

"Well, Superman helped," she said with a wink.

He laughed. She still wasn't over teasing him about his alter ego as often as she could. "Yeah, he could've left you to become a meteor freak," he said.

She scrunched her nose playfully. "I think he would've regretted that," she said lightly.

"Maybe," he said with feigned nonchalance and a shrug.

Chloe crawled into his lap. "Thanks for bringing this over. It feels so good to be me again. Though, oddly, it _will_ take some getting used to."

"Let me know if you get confused and I'll be glad to remind you," he offered.

She kissed him on the cheek.

"I have more good news."

"Yeah?"

"The Chief gave us the day off. He said we deserve it."

"Really? Does this mean...?" The look on her face said she didn't dare hope.

"We can go see your dad before the weekend," he confirmed.

Her eyes lit up and she threw her arms around him. "Oh, Clark, what if he hates me?"

"He won't. I know from experience he'll be glad to have you back."

"I'm not sure surprising him is a good idea, but I don't know how I would do this over the phone either," she worried.

"It'll be all right, Chloe. He won't want to wait to see you."

She nodded, looking lost in her own thoughts.

"Why don't you go get ready? Then we can try to make it before he sees the paper, okay?"

"We're flying there, aren't we?" she asked warily.

"If you want to."

"I do," she said and with a quick kiss she jumped off of his lap and headed for the shower.

Clark re-read her article as he waited and laughed at the memory of Chloe explaining her situation to the Chief. He hadn't been angry, but he had definitely been confused until at least the third rendition of her identity crisis. In the end, he agreed to let her run with her story, happy his reporter had the information to bring down the most corrupt corporation in the midwest.

"I'm ready," Chloe declared as she appeared before him.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

She nodded. "Let's go home."

He picked her up and carried her out on the balcony. "Hold on tight."

"Okay," she said, tightening her arms around his neck.

"Do you trust me?"

"Completely."

"Here we go," he said as he stepped off the railing.

She buried her face in his shoulder at first, but became braver as Clark encouraged her to look around.

After a few minutes she was more relaxed and she took everything in.

"This is amazing," she breathed.

Clark smiled. "I'm glad you think so."

* * *

In a matter of minutes they landed in Gabe's front yard. 

Chloe's heart was pounding and it wasn't because of the flight.

"I don't know if I can do this, Clark," she said hesitantly.

"You can, Chloe. He needs to know you're alive. You know that."

"I know... Please stay close, all right? I'm going to need the support." _Stop being such a coward_, she thought. _This is your dad, practically all the family you've got_.

She approached the front door while Clark hung back slightly. She took a deep breath and knocked.

Gabe answered the door and they stared at each other in shock.

The first thing that struck her was how much older he looked and the slight burn scars on his face. Tears filled her eyes as she remembered her role in causing his pain - both physical and emotional - and how she could never take it back.

"Dad?" she said, letting the tears fall.

"Chloe? Oh my God," he said, his voice breaking. "How...?" He was speechless, but he opened his arms.

She leapt into them, sobbing. "It's a long story, Daddy," she sniffed. "I'm so sorry."

Gabe pulled back, wiping away her tears even as his fell. "Come in and tell me all about it," he said, embracing her again.

She pulled away and turned to Clark, reaching out her hand. He took it. "Dad, Clark's the one who found me. I wouldn't be here without him."

"Thank you," Gabe said, and Clark nodded.

She followed her father inside, Clark trailing behind.

Rebuilding her life would be a long process, but it would be easier with the two people she loved most in the world. Finally, she was free to have everything she ever wanted.

Finis


End file.
